As used herein, the terms “user equipment” and “UE” might in some cases refer to mobile devices such as mobile telephones, Smartphone, personal digital assistants, handheld or laptop computers, and similar devices that have telecommunications capabilities. Such a UE might consist of a UE and its associated removable memory module, such as but not limited to a Universal Integrated Circuit Card (UICC) that includes a Subscriber Identity Module (SIM) application, a Universal Subscriber Identity Module (USIM) application, or a Removable User Identity Module (R-UIM) application. Alternatively, such a UE might consist of the device itself without such a module. In other cases, the term “UE” might refer to devices that have similar capabilities but that are not transportable, such as desktop computers, set-top boxes, or network appliances. The term “UE” can also refer to any hardware or software component that can terminate a communication session for a user. Also, the terms “user agent,” “UA,” “user equipment,” “UE,” “user device” and “user node” might be used synonymously herein.
As telecommunications technology has evolved, more advanced network access equipment has been introduced that can provide services that were not possible previously. This network access equipment might include systems and devices that are improvements of the equivalent equipment in a traditional wireless telecommunications system. Such advanced or next generation equipment may be included in evolving wireless communications standards, such as long-term evolution (LTE). For example, an LTE system might include an enhanced node B (eNB), a wireless access point, or a similar component rather than a traditional base station. As used herein, the term “access node” will refer to any component of the wireless network, such as a traditional base station, a wireless access point, or an LTE eNB, that creates a geographical area of reception and transmission coverage allowing a user equipment (UE) or a relay node to access other components in a telecommunications system.
The Open Mobile Alliance (OMA) Device Management (DM) specification supports extensions called Management Objects (MOs), which are logical collections of related pieces of data stored in a virtual DM tree. A UE that supports OMA DM typically has an embedded OMA DM client that acts as an intermediary between MOs and the applications, functions, agents, or other software or firmware components on the UE that might make use of the MOs to configure their services. An entity that interacts with the OMA DM client on the UE and an OMA DM server includes a Management Authority (MA) which may be a user, a network operator, a handset manufacturer, an enterprise administrator, an agent, or an application that may create, modify, or delete an MO, and may make requests to the UE.
Each MO on a UE typically contains data related to a specific application or capability of the UE. For example, an email MO might contain data associated with an email agent. If multiple email agents are installed on a UE, each might use a separate email MO, or they might all use the same email MO. All of the MOs and agents on a UE typically interact via a single DM client. The device management (DM) tree organizes the MOs in a logical hierarchical manner. Each of these MOs might include multiple nodes that include a single integer value, an indicator, a flag, a universal resource identifier (URI), or might include, for example, a picture and/or other information.
An MO registry is maintained as a repository for values used for MO descriptions. The labels used in the MO registry can refer to assignments of values to MOs defined by OMA work groups, assignments of values to MOs defined by external entities, and/or values that are used for testing or private use. A copy of the MO description can be linked to each registered MO.